One of the new books presented at the annual Caribbean Studies Association’s 2012 book launch organized by Faith Smith (Brandeis University), was Odile Ferly’s A Poetics of Relation:Caribbean Women Writing at the Millennium (Palgrave MacMillan 2012). [See full list of books launched in our previous post Caribbean Studies Association’s 2012 Book Launch.]

A Poetics of Relation: Caribbean Women Writing at the Millennium fosters a dialogue across islands and languages between established and lesser-known authors, bringing together archipelagic and diasporic voices from the Francophone and Hispanic Antilles. This study underscores the socio-cultural impact of emigration and the perpetual self-redefinition that results from this phenomenon. Without denying the enduring impact of former colonial divisions or minimizing the specificities to each bloc in the region, Ferly shows that a comparative analysis of female narratives is often most pertinent across linguistic zones.

ODILE FERLY is an associate professor of French and Francophone Studies at Clark University.

A new collection of essays by Cuban scholar Emilio Jorge Rodríguez—El Caribe literario: Trazados de convivencia [The Literary Caribbean: Paths of Coexistence]—was recently published by Arte y Literatura publishers. This and several other books by this Cuban scholar are being introduced at the International Book Fair in Havana today.

This volume, by Cuban scholar and essayist Jorge Emilio Rodriguez, presents perspectives on various topics related to Caribbean issues. This varied collection studies the work of writers from the region, the relationship between Panama and the Antilles, the analysis of Caribbean journals that have helped disseminate regional literature and culture, and a tribute to the Festival of Fire that takes place every year in Santiago de Cuba, are some of the areas addressed in these “Paths of Coexistence,” to show the cultural confluence and the ecumenical dimension of the Caribbean.

The newest book released here from House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP) is Haiti and Trans-Caribbean Literary Identity / Haití y la transcaribeñidad literaria by Emilio Jorge Rodríguez.

The English and Spanish title is “a remarkable collection of essays,” said Maximilien Laroche, noted Haitian author from Canada’s Université Laval.

The Dominican author and Syracuse University professor Silvio Torres-Saillant said that, “This work of Cuban colleague Emilio Jorge Rodríguez should be listed among the few books that can be said to truly advance the understanding of the subject they address.”

Topics covered are the Haitian novel in the 20th century and the search for Amerindian and African origins in the masterful work of Alejo Carpentier.

The subject of “Creole transgressions” between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is critically explored, and is sure to raise some eyebrows or even tempers but definitely imparting new intelligences, said Lasana M. Sekou, HNP projects director.

Then there’s an utterly rare and captivating discussion placing Cuba’s grand poet Nicolás Guillén on a visit to Haiti and at the “elite” center of the country’s debate on race and culture.

“The essential subject areas of Haiti and Trans-Caribbean Literary Identity are uniquely interpreted. I would dare say that this book is a missing link for most in our fuller knowledge and experiences of Caribbean literature and culture, of how we think and why we live as we do in this region,” said Sekou.

Danny Méndez’s Narratives of Migration and Displacement in Dominican Literature was published this month (February 2012) by Routledge.

Establishing an interdisciplinary connection between Migration Studies, Post-Colonial Studies and Affect Theory, Méndez analyzes the symbolic interplay between emotions, cognitions, and displacement in the narratives written by and about Dominican and Dominican-Americans in the United States and Puerto Rico. He argues that given the historic place of creolization as a marker of national, cultural, and social development in the Caribbean and particularly the Dominican Republic, this cultural process is not magically annulled in Caribbean immigrations to the U.S. Instead, this book illustrates the numerous ways in which Dominicans’ subjective interpretation of their experiences of migration and incorporation into U.S. society, seen through the filter of multiple creolizations of the past, are woven into their written works as a series of variations on Americanness and Dominicanness.

Through close readings of selected writings by Pedro Henríquez Ureña, José Luis González, Junot Díaz, Josefina Báez, Loida Maritza Pérez among others, Méndez argues that emotional creolizations operate as a psychological parameter on immigrant populations as they negotiate their transcultural status against the ideological norms of assimilation in their new host country. Consequently, he proposes that this emotional creolization is dialectical — that is, it not only affects diasporic populations, but also changes the norms and terms of assimilation as well.

The New World Studies Series published by University of Virginia Press has established itself as the top academic series in Caribbean literary studies. One of the most recent publications is Raphael Dalleo’s Caribbean Literature and the Public Sphere.

Bringing together the most exciting recent archival work in anglophone, francophone, and hispanophone Caribbean studies, Raphael Dalleo constructs a new literary history of the region that is both comprehensive and innovative. He examines how changes in political, economic, and social structures have produced different sets of possibilities for writers to imagine their relationship to the institutions of the public sphere. In the process, he provides a new context for rereading such major writers as Mary Seacole, José Martí, Jacques Roumain, Claude McKay, Marie Chauvet, and George Lamming while also drawing lesser-known figures into the story. Dalleo’s comparative approach will be important to Caribbeanists from all of the region’s linguistic traditions, and his book contributes even more broadly to debates in Latin American and postcolonial studies about postmodernity and globalization.

Christine and Donald are two modern, urban professionals, fundamentally unsuited to one another, caught in the currents of life, and bound by the one thing they have in common–powerful sexual desires. They meet in graduate school at Berkeley and become consumed by the amazing sexual chemistry they share. Marriage and four children later, Christine and Donald are at a crossroads. Moving easily between the Caribbean, Africa and the USA, the novel dances between the real-life drama that unfolds between Christine and Donald, and the spiritual world of the Orishas where every human act has a spiritual ramification.

Gail Tsukiyama (author of The Samurai’s Garden and The Street of a Thousand Blossoms) writes: “Rich in the vibrant rhythms and colors of the Caribbean, Painting Away Regrets, is a song that resonates the redeeming power of love and family. Opal Palmer Adisa’s storytelling shines in the lush island folklore; in this story of one woman’s spiritual and sensual journey towards healing and forgiveness.”

[The book cover features LeRoy Clarke’s painting “Arima Mama.”]

Opal Palmer Adisa holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She is a Jamaica-born, award-winning poet, and professor of creative writing and literature at the California College of the Arts, and her work has appeared in more than 200 journals, anthologies, and other publications. She is also the author of numerous poetry and short story collections. Her first novel was It Begins with Tears.

Parable of the Mangoes, a new collection of short stories by Jamaica’s Jean Goulbourne

As poet and novelist, Jean L. Goulbourne writes about the distress, anger, struggle and creativity which she witnesses in Jamaican society from the perspective of a historian and educator (she is a lecturer in History and Social Studies at Church Teachers’ College in Mandeville, Jamaica). Her writing is poetic, economical, pungent and stimulating, and she has received several writing awards. Goulbourne recently published a collection of short stories called Parable of the Mangoes (Abeng Press, 2011). Here are two book reviews, the first by Jean Small and the second by Amazon.com. We thank Peter Jordens for the information in this post.

The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s 2010 gold medalist for short-story writing, Jean Goulbourne, has wasted no time in producing her newest collection of stories, Parable of the Mangoes, published by Abeng Press.

Born in Black River on Jamaica’s south coast, Jean developed a keen eye and ear for all that happened around her in rural Jamaica. These 12 stories express a love of the land, a commitment to the development of the nation, and a sympathetic and compassionate understanding of the lives of a people whose ancestors experienced the harsh circumstances of colonization and slavery.